The short version
- Typical range: £5 – £200 — see the full coins value guide
- What decides your price: condition, and how well you evidence it in photographs
- Cost to sell here: nothing, at any price
- Category: Art & Collectibles
Before you photograph it
Ten minutes here is worth more than anything else you will do. Buyers are deciding between your listing and someone else’s, and preparation is what visibly separates the two.
- Leave every coin exactly as it is. Do not polish, dip, scrub or even rub with a cloth.
- Handle by the edges only, and photograph before sorting so you have a record of what you had.
- Identify each coin by date, mint mark and denomination, and look up which years and varieties are the scarce ones before you decide what to bundle.
The photographs that sell coins
Four photographs do almost all the work. Shoot in daylight, near a window, with the item against something plain — and do not use the flash, which flattens texture and hides exactly what buyers are trying to see.
- Obverse and reverse of each significant coin, filling the frame, in even light
- The date and any mint mark, close enough to read
- The edge, on coins where lettering or milling matters
- The whole lot together for a bulk listing, plus any case, certificate or album
Photograph the flaws too. It feels counterproductive, but a listing that shows the worst of an item gets fewer questions, fewer withdrawn offers and fewer arguments at handover. Buyers who can see the damage stop imagining something worse.
Writing the title and description
Denomination, year, country and grade: “1933 George V Penny, Fine” or “Silver Britannia 1oz 2015, Capsule”. Collectors search year and type. For bullion, weight and fineness are the search. Do not invent a grade — describe honestly or say ungraded.
Then state these in the description, because a buyer who has to ask is a buyer who might not bother:
- Denomination, country, year and mint mark
- Metal and weight, and fineness for bullion
- Whether graded and encapsulated by a third party, or ungraded
- Honest description of wear, toning and any damage, without cleaning it first
What buyers will actually ask
You will receive the same three messages about coins. Answering them in the listing itself removes the back-and-forth, and answering them well when they do arrive is what turns an enquiry into a sale.
Answer truthfully. Collectors spot a cleaned coin instantly from the hairlines and unnatural brightness, and an undisclosed clean destroys trust as well as value.
If it is not professionally graded, describe the wear plainly rather than assigning a grade. Photographs let buyers grade it themselves, which they prefer anyway.
Say what you know from the year and type rather than guessing from colour. Composition changed on specific dates for most currencies and that is easily checked.
Pricing it so it actually sells
Start from the honest condition grade rather than the price you hope for. WishThrift listings use five grades — New with Tags, Like New, Good, Fair and For Parts — and what each grade means is worth reading before you choose, because grading up is the most expensive mistake sellers make. It does not raise the price; it produces a buyer who arrives expecting something else.
The coins value guide prices all five grades for this item. Pick your grade, take the figure, and if you sit between two grades price toward the lower one. Items priced honestly sell faster than items priced hopefully, and on a free platform there is no fee eating the difference anyway.
What you keep, compared
On a £102 sale — roughly the middle of the range for coins — here is what the commission-charging platforms would take, and what you would keep on each:
| Where you sell it | Fee | You keep |
|---|---|---|
| WishThrift | £0 | £102 |
| Poshmark | −£20 | £82 |
| eBay | −£14 | £88 |
| Mercari | −£10 | £92 |
| Etsy | −£7 | £95 |
Seller-side rates verified 26 Jul 2026 — Poshmark: 20% commission on sales of $15 and above; eBay: 13.6% final value fee, plus a per-order fee; Mercari: flat 10% selling fee; Etsy: 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee and payment processing. Percentages are applied to the sterling figure above; the fixed per-order and processing charges those platforms add are quoted in their own currency and are not included here, so the real deductions are slightly larger. Full breakdown: marketplace selling fees compared.
Timing and getting it to the buyer
Steady year round to a specialist audience. Bullion tracks the metal price and sells any time; collectable coins sell when correctly identified, which is the real bottleneck.
Small and light but easily lost and worth stealing, so use a tracked, signed service and pack in a rigid envelope or small box. Never send loose coins in a padded bag.
WishThrift does not process payments or arrange delivery — you and the buyer agree both directly — so confirm payment has cleared before the item leaves your hands, and keep the conversation on the site so there is a record of what was agreed.
Ready to list it? It takes about two minutes, costs nothing, and there is no commission when it sells — create a free account or see how selling works.
Frequently asked questions
Should I clean coins before selling?
No. Never. Cleaning leaves microscopic scratches and strips the original surface, and a cleaned coin can be worth a fraction of the same coin untouched. This is the most expensive mistake in the category.
What are used coins worth?
Anything from a few pounds for circulated modern coins to £200 and far beyond for scarce dates and bullion. See the coins value guide for how condition changes it.
Should I sell a collection as a lot or individually?
Identify the collection first, then list anything genuinely scarce on its own and bundle the rest. Selling a rare date inside a bulk lot is how sellers lose the most money in this category.
See also: what a used coins is worth · browse live art & collectibles listings · condition grades explained.